Photos Within
A Photo Within a Photo adapted from a wider shot of Shallowford Square with Christmas lights in Lewisville, North Carolina.
Surprise
The surprise discovery I referred to in the earlier post, Before the Lights Come Down, was finding that there were actually several distinct photos within the initial photo that could stand on their own. This photo is from the lower left-hand portion of the initial shot. If you’d like, take a moment to click on the link to the earlier post so you can compare the two photos.
During the process of photographing at Shallowford Square, I simply didn’t see the additional photos that existed in portions of the scene. But, of course, I had gone to the Square with the intent of shooting wide shots — as many as I could in the rapidly fading last light of the day.
The other photos that I discovered within the initial photo focus on narrower portions of the scene. Please CLICK to see the other photos within the photo.
Before the Lights Come Down
Sunset at Shallowford Square was the perfect time to create this HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo yielding unbelievable detail throughout.
Prelude to an Uncertain Photo
Boy, was this image ever fun to work on! Of course, it wasn’t fun when I first thought I should go back out in the cold to get the shot! After all, it was New Year’s Eve, and I’d already spent a good portion of the day photographing the first phase of the Nissen House move.
When I arrived home after photographing at the Nissen House site, it felt so good to be in from the cold and the wind. I immediately began offloading the day’s images from the memory cards and was anxious to start editing them.
And then it occurred to me that, with all the December activities, I’d not managed to make any wide-angle shots of Shallowford Square decorated with its Christmas lights. I knew the lights would probably be up for about a week more, so I could wait till another day, if I’d like. But the reality was that there was no guarantee that my schedule and the weather would coincide ideally before the lights were taken down.
Decisions, Decisions
It’s times like this when I sometimes battle with myself, and I don’t always make the best long-term decision. I should photograph such-and-such, but….
If I’m too lax with myself, I’ll miss out on some good photos that can’t be easily or quickly replicated, if at all. On the other hand, photography doesn’t completely control my life, so I’m not compulsively driven to capture every single moment.
A few weeks earlier, my excursions to photograph Christmas lights were under different conditions. For instance, the photo for the Never Forgotten post was shot during a cloudy sunrise, and the photo for the Lights, Camera…Snow? post was taken at pitch dark. I’d since determined that my next attempt at Christmas light photography would involve photographing them just prior to, during and after a cloudless sunset.
So as I looked out the front window at the brilliant, clear sunlight of the remaining hours of New Year’s Eve, I made the somewhat ambivalent decision to head up to Shallowford Square for a sunset shot of the Christmas lights. CLICK to read more.
2008 & Children
For those of you who observe the Christmas holiday, I hope Christmas Eve and Christmas Day held some special moments for you. It’s hard to believe, though, that Christmas has now come and gone, and that we’re approaching the end of 2008.
Another year of our life is closing, and a new one is just ahead. What has 2008 held for you? And what do you anticipate in 2009?
Looking Back
As I look back on 2008, a few things have become clearer to me regarding my own path. In the realm of photography, I’ve realized — and I claim — with great joy, that I absolutely love photographing children. As much as I enjoy other areas of photography, few things stir me more than the faces and hearts of the littlest ones in this world.
One occasion this year during which I experienced the joy of photographing children was in June at Lewisville Library’s 2008 Summer Reading Kick-Off. The above photo was taken of a delightful young lady who sat patiently for me as a bluegrass band played on the shaded grounds next to the library. Her expressions and demeanor captivated me at the time — and they still do.
In the remaining blog posts for this year, I’ll be sharing more with you about what 2008 has meant to me, as well as about my expectations or hopes for 2009.
Meanwhile, if you’d like, you can check out a few more photo highlights I’ve pulled from the photo gallery of that fun June day at the library. CLICK to see a few more FAVORITE PHOTOS
Moving Along
This resolute walker was rapidly moving along Lewisville’s main thoroughfare. All the components of the image came together: the lighting, the background, the colors, the movement and the expression. I liked the photo and decided it would be a good candidate for moving along with my HDR experiments
I first mentioned using the HDR technique on the photo of this old car, and I’ve since applied the HDR technique to several other photos. (If you click on the “HDR” tag at the end of this post, you can see other photos to which this technique was applied.)
What is HDR? It stands for High Dynamic Range. Some experts also refer to it as HDRI, or High Dynamic Range Imaging. Here’s a short definition, taken from The HDRI Handbook, by Christian Bloch:
High dynamic range imaging is a method to digitally capture, store, and edit the full luminosity range of a scene.
The key phrase in the definition is “full luminosity.” What you get with HDR is an image that contains all (or at least most) of the tones that actually existed in a scene, ranging from light to dark. Ordinarily, when the tones in a scene range from very bright to very dark, the resulting photograph ends up with compressed tones — not a good thing — because the camera sensor (or film) is incapable of capturing the complete range of tones within a single exposure. But HDR allows you to achieve a much greater range of tones in a scene, and therefore yields more detail and can sometimes look surreal.
In addition to using HDR on this photo, I also applied other Photoshop techniques to it. The resulting image has a very dynamic and energetic look to it that really appeals to me.
What do you think about HDR? Do you like it, or is it too exaggerated for you? I’d be interested in hearing from you.
Update on 2/25/09: The comments on this post provide more thoughts regarding HDR applied to people and creating an HDR image from a single RAW file. In addition, you might also want to check out the additional web page that resulted from the discussion. That new page is entitled HDR and Non-HDR Comparison.
